Sea Otter Report Six – Team Bikes and Precious Things

How's that for a different take on the Yeti turquoise? Coloured graphics on a bare 303 frame. Tasty.So here's a 32 spoke Shimano Saint wheel. Tough and light-ish.And here's the new wheel on Gee Atherton's downhill Commencal. Note the gold, alloy nipples. This prototype saves 100g per wheel - and as this will be the year of the weight conscious DH bike, every little helps.Greg Watts gets custom graphics on his Roscoe stunt bike.Gold shifters too. Note the front brake hose through the headset cap - that's for barspins and tailwhips that is.Even the swing-link is gold... Tart!It's a new sight - a Tracy Moseley Trek but you'd better get used to it. She won the downhill at Sea Otter to add to her World Cup win.The new Trek World Racing houndstooth graphics are very striking. We think we like them. Probably.Here's the hardtail one...Never mess with a bored bike engineer. This is Ray Waxham's commuting bike... First you take a carbon Trek Madone frame...You create (and patent) a split, eccentric dropout that lets you install AND tension a Gates carbon belt....you machine up your own toothed belt sprocket and chainring, stick on a pair of Bontrager Race XXX Lite wheels (modified to one-speed)...

...stick on some light bits......and use a pair of Crank Bros Joplin remote levers as multi-directional BRAKE LEVERS! Oh, and you make sure it weighs around 12lbs... Bonkers.Brandon Semenuk's jump bike. Most riders find the right gear for the course and then don't shift much, so by sticking your shifter out of the way, you don't need to worry about long cable runs.So how about fitting a new SRAM R2C return to centre time trial shifter on your downtube bottle mounts? (Oh, and Paul's Components DO already make a flat bar mount for thumbie fans...)Cane Creeks new AER headset - the lightest headset in the world. The cups are super light and machined out, but the clever bit is the top 'race' is no more than a Teflon conical washer - it's worked for pedals for years, so why not on a low-rotation item like a headset? It weighs 49g - and the integrated one comes in at 33g! Road only - though we know there'll be some mountain bikers who can't resist. Wonder if Liam Killeen's seen this?An Ibis Ti Mojo - enough to get the purists drooling.How do you get down to the Sea Otter? You drive your Speshed Up Mini with a couple of bikes (including the new alloy 29er Stumpy) on the roof. We think this is Mike Sinyard's own car. And on the subject of Specialized, we saw that Sauser was running taped-over SRAM XX brakes, but we can't tell you about them yet...It's Christoph Sauser's bike, well hidden in the pits, and what are those brake levers? They look like brand new Elixir CR Mags, only what's that bit of black tape doing on them?

...wait - these levers are flip-flop, so let's have a look at the underside of them to see if there's a logo... Hmm, looks like 'XX' And out back, there's a very shiny caliper with full Ti bolt kit running on a minimal looking, spidered disc. And there's that bit of black tape again. You can tell it's Sauser's bike by the light alloy bolts holding the brake on. That boy does love saving weight...

As the downtube shift returns to centre, I bet shifting with your knee wouldn’t be too bad…

However, on a serious note, are these companies serious about releasing so much sexy kit, at the same time as prices rocket and peoples available £ plummets? Can’t help but think that most of this stuff will never actually sell. Nice to see though. Maybe in 20 years?

As the downtube shift returns to centre, I bet shifting with your knee wouldn’t be too bad…

However, on a serious note, are these companies serious about releasing so much sexy kit, at the same time as prices rocket and peoples available £ plummet? Can’t help but think that most of this stuff will never actually sell. Nice to see though. Maybe in 20 years?

“However, on a serious note, are these companies serious about releasing so much sexy kit, at the same time as prices rocket and peoples available £ plummets? Can’t help but think that most of this stuff will never actually sell. Nice to see though. Maybe in 20 years?”

i’ve just got off the phone with Moulton – they’ve got a 13 month waiting list for some of their more expensive bikes. and that’s Moulton, we’re talking Jeff Jones money and more, recession my arse…